Connie sent me the dark lady in the graphic at the top, the caption of which, "Oh Lonesome Me" almost makes me cry for I have been thinking all day about what terrible pain Debbie must be enduring to leave her family. Debbie was dark like this woman and must have been very beautiful when she was young. She will find healing for her affliction in the other world, I know, but her heart is not going to stop hurting for a long time with the pain of leaving her family. I finally called for my sister LaRae in the second photo who was 51 when she died and left her her two daughters to miss her so much, and her grandchildren and now two great-grandchildren, to come and talk to me about Debbie. I always feel that those who die away from here after they have lived here so long will come back and mix and mingle with all the others who have passed from this old hotel-dwelling place. When I watch old videos of parties we have had, I feel as though I am watching ghosts dancing and walking about because most all of them are dead.
My Aunt Nethella in the last photo died around the same time LaRae did only she was 95, nearly 45 years older than my sister LaRae was in her passing.
LARAE: Yes, you don't get over leaving your family very easy. So you just come back as much as you can and spend time with them anyway.
GERRY: I felt sadness today when our sister Ann reported on the funeral she went to for a woman who was incidentally around 94 when she passed, and she saw a woman there you always called your best friend, you spent so much time with her in high school. When Ann mentioned your name Lois shed tears, so she has not gotten entirely over your passing so young either. I will never forget over 20 years ago seeing her at your viewing sobbing as though her heart was breaking. The hardest deaths are too soon. I talked to our sister Linda quite a long while this afternoon, but now I am feeling lonely because there is no one to talk to in the long evenings. Doc is getting more and more impaired by his alcoholism, so it's been a long dying for him. Limiting his ability to participate so much. Today I went to breakfast with Chad's Mother and Dad who spent time traveling all around the country now they are retired. I said it must be wonderful to have a companion to go traveling with when you are old. I explained that my companion was too impaired to travel anywhere. He is very reclusive right now. He has almost become a ghost while still alive!
LARAE: Yes, he will probably feel more alive when he is gone than he does now. His burden of alcoholism will be lifted from him.
GERRY: I heard today that Jack had been seen camping out with other homeless around the library but surely he did not winter there. He would have frozen it has been so cold and rainy. He's still drinking, too. When you fall homeless and have to sleep on the ground, you are really down and out, but he is alive!
LARAE: Desperate people living desperate lives. I did as you asked and checked on Debbie. She is resting. As you guessed, she is devastated at leaving her family. She still has many ties to people here so she will be back and forth and all over the place checking on her family. Praying they will be able to get through her passing without worse happening.
GERRY: Her daughter was so close to her. Debbie told me about her serious illness. In a coma for two months I think Debbie said. So she almost died. That is probably who Debbie is the most worried about. Debbie lost her son though, not too many years back, through substance abuse, so she will be joining him. That was a big tragedy for the family. And so Neta has come to join the other old folks. She lived to a ripe old age as did Aunt Nethella
NETHELLA: I have been waiting to get my two cents worth in. I am very pleased, naturally, with all the history writing you girls are doing. Your Mother, LeNora, and I did our part, now it is you girls turn to write the history books. I am very pleased that so many younger women decided to write for the festival this summer about older women they admired who lived and had to work so hard in the old Boulder, back in the days when there was no electricity, or running water in the houses, and bad roads. I rode a lot of horses to get there in my time. Now I know I am not up to date in talking to the living as I did not know I would be doing it, so I will step back and let LaRae speak, as she seems to be very good at it. I think I can learn something from her!
LARAE: When you don't live to be an old lady you learn to do a lot of things you never thought you would, like try to get the attention of the living who might be lonely enough to tolerate a visit from the dead.
GERRY: I feel as though I was preparing for my passing, too, as I meditate each night, my older eyes unable to take the TV and its fare, although I am praying tonight that the health care plan has passed with restrictions on abortion funding as they claim. I felt cutting down on those deaths was so important, and I was heartened to see Congressman Stupak demanding the restrictions before he and other hold outs would sign the bill. Some are very cynical and say the democrats don't mean what they are agreeing to.
LARAE: The pro life people will have to hold them to their promise not to include abortion funding. We in the spirit world as much as anyone want to see abortion deaths cut way back. I was pro choice there. Now I am pro life, couldn't be anything else once I was saved, lifted out of the grave to live again. You literally have to be reborn if you don't believe. You can't believe that everyone is saved. What that means cannot even be comprehended there, but it was a huge change in my thinking. Actually I was not really thinking before because I did not believe in life after death or that I would be saved. We are celebrating Raymond's commitment to a higher power here to conquer alcoholism. Doc is lost because he cannot believe. Jack is lost because he cannot believe. He needs help. He needs AA, too, enough men to help lift him up. If he could find them, he could sober up again, but without intervention of some sort he is not going to make it. Gary, your son, needs help. He needs AA, too. AA could help him a lot more than he thinks it would. Because those men would understand a lifetime of drinking.
GERRY: Alcohol takes such a toll of human lives, does so much ongoing damage to so many. I am hoping now that Raymond will get strong enough to help others.
NETHELLA: AA saved my son Richard from sure death from drinking. You know he became an inspirational speaker for AA, known in the northern part of the state. He says these programs are badly needed in the southern part, and I know they are. He says he will come soon with a message for Raymond and Gary. He says to pray constantly for intervention. He and others will put men there who can help Gary in Phoenix and Raymond in Utah. They will be there to to help inspire work for alcoholics in southern Utah. I am so sad when I realize what Clyde's drinking did to his family, what my brother Glen's drinking did to his, and to our brothers Reed, and Max, and my nephews Stuart and Park and Ray. I wish I had been more aware, but I wasn't. Now I have learned to pray for the family. Tell Raymond and Gary and Dan and Scott, tell all of them, they will get help from a higher power, and from all of us. I feel like praying now for the King family. And for all the alcoholics and lonely people everywhere.
